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The Mormon Reformation of 1856-57 is one of the darkest and most interesting periods of Mormon and Utah history. Polygamy as well as blood atonement featured prominently in the zeitgeist of the time, with intense rhetoric that led to some some terrible and extremely unfortunate outcomes. This is a part of history that we would all prefer to forget, but acknowledging it and coming to terms with it is important as we seek to understand our past and the history of our traditions in our search for truth.
Links
Reformation of 1856–57 (churchofjesuschrist.org)
Mormon Reformation – Wikipedia
Brigham Young, October 8, 1855 Vol. 03 Journal of Discourses, pg 117-122
Brigham Young, March 2, 1856 Vol. 03 Journal of Discourses, pg 222-226
Questions to be asked the Latter-day Saints Questions to be asked the Latter-day Saints – Special Collections Miscellaneous 3 – Digital Collections (oclc.org)
Brigham Young, September 21, 1856 Vol. 04 Journal of Discourses, pg 53-57
Heber C. Kimball, November 9, 1856 Vol. 04 Journal of Discourses, pg 81-82
Jedediah M. Grant, September 21, 1856 Vol. 04 Journal of Discourses, 49-51
Hymn, “The Reformation” Deseret News | 1856-11-26 | Page 6 | | Utah Digital Newspapers
A few links to get started. There is much more information available:
https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume73_2005_number1/s/10142619
Parish Potter Murders Utah/Crime and violence/Parrish-Potter murders – FAIR (fairlatterdaysaints.org)
Mountain Meadows On the Road to Mountain Meadows | Times & Seasons (timesandseasons.org)
“Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!” The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse (unl.edu)
Also see: History of the Saints, Season 2, Episode 33, and Season 3, Episodes 11&12
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcomed 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. Thank you for joining us. I always like to remind people to listen to these episodes in order so you can understand what we have already discussed and where we are coming from. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 31, where we’re going to take a deep dive into one of the lesser known but most terrifying parts of Utah history, namely the Mormon Reformation of 1856 and 1857. We consider the effect it had specifically on polygamy, but also on the broader Mormon culture and on some of the ideas that still influence us today. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. The Mormon Reformation. OK, hold on to your hats for this episode. Those who are already aware of this period, hopefully this will be a good review and you can fill in anything that I may have missed because there are a lot of books and articles written about this period. But, um, strangely, there aren’t many videos on YouTube, so I’m hoping that this will help move the conversation forward because I think this is a period of period of time that deserves more focus than um it has received at least in podcast and discussion. So, strangely, maybe, the place I want to start, cause as I’ve been reading through the talks on the Reformation, an idea that just kept hitting me was the idea of projection. So most of you who know much about psychology understand. The idea of projection, right? And it’s basically where you subconsciously put the things you don’t like about yourself, um, either habits or judgments or ways of being, you bury those in yourself and don’t admit them. To yourself and you instead see them on in others. Does that make sense? It’s, um, and unconsciously accusing others of doing what we are actually doing or accusing of others of thinking what we are actually thinking. It’s a form of blame blame shifting. So maybe the classic example is in a relationship where one partner is unfaithful and is having affairs and is extremely jealous of the other partner and and accusing them of infidelities, right? So. Um, it shows up in a lot of ways. I have a recent example. All of us do this, so it’s something that’s good to be aware of in any case. Here’s a recent example. I had a swimming suit that was kind of new and I bought it on sale and I had some funny sort of Fabric on the shoulders that I didn’t like sort of a little ruffle, you know, and so I had put my swimsuit on just when we went out of town last week and and came walking out and my husband pulled kind of a little, um, he smiled at me basically in a sort of cheesy way and immediately my mind I I like wanted to blurt out with, I know, I don’t like. Sleeves either. You don’t need to make fun of me, you know. Thankfully, I understand this well enough to immediately just be able to go, holy cow and start laughing cause he was just smiling at me that I’d put my swimsuit on to go swim with the kids, but I, since I was judging the sleeves of my swimsuit, put attributed that to him, right? So that makes sense? A really good example of this, my um. My adult daughters had me watch, well, one of them had me watch a documentary that was made about, I hate to even say her name cause I don’t want to give her more focus, but a very interesting and I would say troubling um person named Teal Swan, and there was a documentary on of her,
[00:03:42] and if anyone gets a chance to watch episode 4, I think it was made by, I don’t know if it was Disney or Hulu or whatever, but episode 4 was stunning. That’s the main part she had me watch and This woman who is so controlling and uh it’s it’s really, really quite interesting, but she is really angry at this other woman and she gathers everybody together in the room and says that. That they need to say what this what this woman is judging her for. So she reads this list of all the things that she’s accusing the other woman of thinking about her, and it’s just fascinating to watch her read all of the judgments about herself. I’m too masculine. I am manipulative. I’m controlling. I use my sex to manipulate people like blah blah blah blah blah. Like she goes on and on and on and the other woman’s like. None of that’s coming from me, you know, so it’s really interesting the places that you can see this. Anyone who’s watched that documentary will know what I mean, but there are many examples. 11 more example just because these are in my recent past so there are things I think of, but there are examples everywhere. I’m just watching my husband’s favorite series. I’m watching it with him and um he’s having me watch it. He’s watching it again so I can watch it. We just watched a scene where um there’s a house that’s being robbed and the getaway driver is sitting in his taxi and um a police car pulls up behind him. And it shows the police and they’re just parked by the side of the road talking about what they’re eating for dinner, you know, have nothing, they’re just, they just happen to be parked there, but the guy in the front of the car, the the front car is just, you know, having a nervous breakdown till he finally can’t stand it anymore and he speeds off and crashes into another car and then the police are like, uh, OK, and you know, so it’s just we all do this, we all. Put onto other people our own thoughts and our own judgments and our own feelings and often our own actions, right? Often with people with personality disorders like I’m more familiar with narcissism, narcissism and other things, they always say. Use narcissists as accusations as their confessions, right? Whatever they accuse you of is really confessing what they are doing. So this is a really useful way to understand, in my opinion, and this might be problematic for other people, but as I’m reading through the reformation, I’m just going. Holy cow, this is like an exercise in projection, right? Because it’s so common for leaders when things don’t feel like they’re going right for leaders to blame the people, to blame the followers, and it’s a lot less common in my experience in um sort of isolated religious groups for leaders to say, hey, what are we doing wrong? What are we Getting wrong, what could we maybe repent of? So that’s something that I wanted to, um, draw attention to. And I think the, the most profound teaching about projection is actually the savior. Um, I love Matthew 7:1, Judge not that ye be not judged,
[00:06:46] for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. It’s so interesting because this is quite literal. It’s your own judgment of yourself that Informs how you think others are judging you, right? If I’m totally like happy about something, if, if I’m feeling really good about something and someone looks at me, I’ll be like, oh, they think I look cute today, or they think I’m neat, or that you, you right? and and if I’m really insecure about something and someone looks at me, I’ll think, oh, they’re judging me there and it has nothing to do with that other person. It’s all about my judgment of myself that I’m projecting onto them. So this is so literal that it’s interesting. It’s what we actually do to ourselves. And the Savior goes on, And why beholdest thou the malt that is in thy brother’s eye, but considers not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thou thy brother, Let me pull out the moat of thine eye, and behold a beam is in thine own eye, thou hypocrite. First cast out the beam of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. At its core, projection teaches us that whenever we are inclined to accuse somebody else, it serves us well to look inside and see where that trait resides in us and why we might be hiding it from ourselves. So that’s, that’s the approach that I am taking as I read through um some of these sermons. Of course, Everybody is free to have their own, their own approach. So I want to start by sort of setting the stage to help us understand the situation, the dire straits that the early Utahns were in that led to this period of some of the most extreme and difficult teachings and quotes from the early Utah leaders. And Um, anyway, so we’re, we’re going to set the stage so we can understand what was happening and what a difficult time it was. So, If you’ll remember back, the very first leaders entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and then more pioneers came every year until there were tens of thousands of residents. I looked at the census and I found that in 1850 there were 11,000 over 11,000 residents, and by 1860 there were over 40,000 residents. So it was a period of extreme growth. So we’re gonna start talking about 1854. So before then, up until then, the Saints were building a thriving community. They were all working really hard. It was a ton of work to build a city out of the desert. But, um, things were growing and things were improving and everything was getting better, um, until by 1852, as we discussed in, um, episode seven, I think it’s called the Emergence of 132. Um, by 1852, Brigham Young felt secure enough in their valley, and yeah, you know, that he felt confident enough to finally acknowledge and admit that they were in fact, um, polygamists, right, which they had denied up until that point, and that’s when they openly admitted it and avowed polygamy as a central part of their religion.
[00:09:56] And so um that was just setting the tone to see, see things were getting better, they were improving. Just over a year after that. So that was in the fall conference of 1852, and the winter of 1854, 1955, things started going very badly. The winter was extremely mild, like it was not very cold, which was, which is kind of nice, but it was also extremely dry. There was hardly any snow and some The leaders started to get very concerned and in the spring, there was no rain. And so there was practically no farmer. I mean, there was practically no water. Sorry, I was reading. The, um, farmers went ahead and planted, but it was so dry that very few seeds started to sprout. And, um, it, according to the historians, most that did withered. And so there was, it was just really hard to get, to get. Many crops. Then, um, so this was already one of the worst droughts in the 19th century, but then things got worse. So that was 1854, 1955. There was a drought and there was not a lot of food. And so, um, then this is what happened that following summer. One day, I mean the summer of ’55. 1 day the sun was darkened and there was a kind of swarm before the Sun and everyone thought it was going to storm. But on observing closely, you could see that the air was thick with small objects or specks about the size of the point of a needle. As the day advanced, the objects became plainer and you could see flying insects in all directions. They were grasshoppers. That’s from John Lo Butler, who lived at that time. They they were actually Rocky Mountain locusts. The scientists tell us now that are called grasshoppers that And there was a massive infestation that summer, so there were hardly any crops left, but anything green that was there got eaten up. So this was not to be confused with the crickets, right? The crickets of 48 and the seagulls. This was seven years later and it was grasshoppers. Here’s another quote from um Joseph Holbrook. Everything was literally covered with them. The air was so full that it appeared like a snowstorm, even to somewhat obscure the rays of the sun at times. They destroyed the most of the crop, taking in one night the heads of the oats, the blades of corn, beans, and almost every green thing, even eating up the grass. So that was the situation. And there weren’t seagulls forthcoming. This lasted for, I don’t know when it started, but it lasted until July, um. George A. Smith said of this in the summer of 1855, about 2/3 of the grain in Utah County is destroyed, and a large black bug is devouring the potatoes. All the, all the farms south are nearly a desert. This is rather a dark picture, but I regret to say it is not overdrawn.
[00:12:57] Myriads of grasshoppers like snowflakes and a storm occasionally fill fill the air as far as the eye can reach. So that was what happened in the summer of 50, I mean the winter of 5455, the spring of 55, and then the summer of ’55. It was intense. It was bad. Um then it went from bad to worse because of the massive drought. Everything was dry and brown, right? So in Utah, what happened? Massive forest fires. It sounds like forest fires raged in practically every canyon. There was um no grazing for the livestock, so they started to suffer from starvation and dehydration. So that was the situation. It was bad. And then came the winter of ’55. So they didn’t really have any kind of a crop or harvest to speak of 50 in 55 that um that year and then it turned to winter and the winter of 55, 56 was as severe as the previous winter had been mild, and 2/3 of the farm animals and livestock died. They froze to death. They were already starving and So now not only did they not have any grain, any vegetables, now even any weeds, you know, now they didn’t have livestock, they didn’t have meat and milk and eggs and and it was just getting really bad. So by early 1856, that bad winter, it was the most severe famine Utah had ever seen and has ever seen since. There was no grain, no fruits, no vegetables, no meat, no milk, nothing to eat. The entire population was facing starvation. This is a quote from Heap Ursie Kimball. He lamented that the little wheat and corn he had left. Here’s where the quote starts, will not provide for my own family until the harvest. Moreover, there is not a settlement in the territory but is in the same fix as we are. Money will not buy flour and meal. Dollars and cents do not count now. And these do not count now in these times, for they are the tightest I have ever seen since being in the territory of Utah. So that was the situation. And one thing that was really interesting to me is this is the time period where our LDS concept of um food storage of preparedness, all of the sermons about 7 years of supplies won’t be enough for all the people coming here. It grows out of this time period because there was literally starvation. That was really interesting for me to learn. And so um this the church history topic, the church website has a series of church history topics and they they have a um one on the Mormon Reformation. And this is what it says. Brigham Young viewed these challenges as divine reproofs, and at the October 1855 general conference, he urged the saints to repent, that they may be chastened no more. So this was the fall of 1855 before things got even worse. In 1856, right? So 1855 is when things were already bad because of the drought and the grasshoppers and the wildfires, but they were going to get worse. And so, um, October 1855 conference were the first hints of the Reformation. And um again, as I mentioned before, I just, it’s so interesting that the leaders automatic go to seemed to be that it was the people’s fault that they were to blame, that they needed to repent. I really have read through more reformation talks than I ever wanted to. I haven’t read through all of them cause there are a lot. You can pretty much go to the Journal of Discourses and read anything from 1856 and and some things from 1857, quite well, pretty much anything from 1856,
[00:16:41] 1857 to get a taste of what was going on. It’s, it’s really intense. I, um, but I couldn’t see any of the leaders, at least I have yet to find where any of them. Sort of humble themselves, seek inspiration to know the Lord’s will, seem to be open to learning if they are doing something wrong or open to repentance. It’s all just, it just feels to be like intense accusations, judgments, vengeance, and even violence. It was like they knew what had to happen. They, they already knew and it was Anyway, it was a crazy time. So, um, so I’m just going to read through this is going to be a lot of reading in this episode cause I don’t know how to do it any better than reading excerpts from the sermons that they were giving, so. This is Brigham Young in that October 1855 conference. So the first hints of the Reformation, he says, Let us reform that we may be chastened no more. Let us try to profit by the blessings we receive instead of being made to profit by profit by the tidings we suffer for afflictions we shall be obliged to receive if we do not profit by our blessings. If we are chastened a little, do not. Worry about it. We think we are chasing this season in our failing crops, but I received this as one of the greatest blessings that could be bestowed upon us. He goes on to talk about how it will help them be grateful. This, however, is but a very slight affliction. We have plenty, we have plenty here. No person is going to starve or suffer if there is an equal distribution of the necessity necessaries of life which are in the country. So, um, this was in 1855, right, the first year. So unfortunately going forward. Many people did starve. It was a terrible time. Um, this is the year, well, I maybe I get into that later, but I’ll say it as I think of it now. Um, 1856 is when my great great grandmother starved to death in a dugout in Lehigh. Horrible, horrible suffering, um, just unthinkable suffering. So because starving to death is a hard way to go. And when you’re living in a duck out, dugout and you, you really die of dysentery combined with starvation, it’s just miserable. The people were suffering. Well, It gets worse. They were already very uncomfortable in 1855, shall we say they were hungry. He goes on to warn people not to sell their crops for profit, and he calls that speculate speculating. He tells them, don’t speculate, meaning don’t sell to Gentiles, right? We need the grain for the hungry here, don’t sell it and want to profit on it. He comes down really hard on people who want to improve their circumstances, talking to them about their greed and selfishness and wanting to get a home or get a farm or improve, you know,
[00:19:17] he, he, he really paints it in an interesting way and that’s interesting. So I have to admit this was, this was hard for me to read because um. If you know what Brigham Young’s personal circumstances were compared to his rhetoric, there’s a real disconnect and maybe that’s why I kind of talk about projection because while he is saying this in 1855, coming down hard on people for wanting a more comfortable home or wanting a more profitable business or livelihood, um, he had just finished the Lion House the year before that match and it was not his first home. He had Several other homes. That was the mansion, right? So we had finished the lion house and the beehive House was well underway. It was actually finished in 1856, which was the height of this famine. So people were literally starving to death and The mansion was being built and finished and um there’s a lot more we can go into. I’ll just leave it there for now, but um it’s kind of hard to know how many homes and farms and businesses and investments um Brigham Young had and how much comfort he sought and enjoyed while the hungry people are being kind of lambasted, right? So, um, I think, I mean, I think that there’s definitely wisdom to say, hey, we’re in hard times, please don’t sell your grain, please share, but um maybe. I, I don’t know, it’s just it’s a little tricky cause it, you know, it’s kind of like lead by example, but so he seems to catch himself a bit. He does this in a couple of speeches where I’ve read where he’s coming down really hard and then he seems to be somewhere aware, you know, on some level aware so he. Knowledges in a little way and then kind of and then kind of dismisses. So here’s how he does it here because he goes on a lot about talking about speculators and how they’ll be, you know, like, like it’s really a time of talking about kicking people out of the community or cutting them down. We’ll, we’ll go into that later. So he’s talking about that. Then he goes on and says, interrupts himself and says, some who are unacquainted with acquainted with me may say, Brother Brigham, don’t you speculate. Then he makes a joke. Yes, I am the greatest speculator in the world and one of the greatest misers, for I am seeking after eternal riches. But don’t you speculate on your flower? You have fine mills. Ask those who recoll recollect to a few years ago when wheat was trapped underfoot by man and beast, and he goes on to talk about how, like to kind of justify and, you know, say I know that, you know, I don’t, I haven’t done what I’m telling you to do, but It doesn’t matter because, you know, and it didn’t, didn’t count because, so it’s just, it’s interesting to read how that kind of keeps coming up. So this was that first talk. Oh, he then says something that again,
[00:22:00] this, this was difficult for me to hear in in this period. He says, if I cannot get rich only upon the principle of oppressing my brethren and and depriving them of the comforts of life, I say, may God grant that I may never have another farthing upon earth. I do not want it upon such terms. And if I should, and if I ever should, I hope the Lord will keep me from it. So again, this was, you know, it’s so easy to say, I don’t care about money when you have plenty, when you are eating just fine, living rather luxuriously, building, furnishing, decorating, multiple mansions. Well, his people were literally starving to death. I guess they most weren’t starving to death at this point, but it wasn’t far off. And They were starving, both the ones that were crossing the planes, the um hand carts was like the rations were so small on the hand carts, even the ones that didn’t go badly, that there was a lot of suffering and starvation happening. So we’re going to cover, go into this more in an upcoming episode. So, um, he, he goes on, if those who wish to speculate and grain in consequence of the scarcity through drought and the ravages of the grasshopper come and offer you money for your grain. Do not sell a bushel or 5 $10 or $20 but, but tell them no, our wheat is to feed the poor saints and no one else. If you, and then this is the reason I included this because I mean, I’m so glad that he’s saying, hey, we need to take care of each other. Like that is really a true message and is beautiful. But this is something he says that I think helps us understand the situation in 1850s Utah, right? He says, well, early Utah. If you do not do this, I am watching you. Do you know that I have my threads strung all through the territory, that that I may know what individuals do. So he’s threatening them. I have spies. I’m watching you and. It’s, it’s like, oh, and you have to realize he was both the religious leader and also the governmental leader, right? There was no check on his authority of any kind. He really had just complete absolute power in um in the territory. So he says, um. Know that I have my threads strung all through the territory that I may know what individuals do. If you do not pursue a righteous course, we will separate you from the church. Is that all? No. If necessary, we, we will take your grain from your bin and distribute it among the poor and needy, and they shall be fed and supplied with work, and you shall receive what your grain is worth. There is plenty for all who are now in the territory and for all that will come this fall. And so he goes on to assure them because remember they’re already without uh without um crops and more, more um pioneers are coming in that are going to need to be fed. Like this was a scary time. So he goes on to assure them that they’re that they will not starve or go without food for even 2 or 3 days because they are Mormons. He says, I’ve never been hungry a day since I’ve been a Mormon.
[00:25:01] So anyway, so that was um that was that first introduction to the Reformation and Throughout the talks that we’ve read, there is just a ton of talk of separating out or mowing down, cutting asunder, rooting out or shedding the blood of, etc. etc. all kinds of things of the saints who were not faithful enough, right? And it’s hard to define what that meant because the, like, like it gets really intense. So again, just throughout as I think about this and compare what’s being taught to the scriptures and what I understand, it really seems off base and that’s why I guess it’s so interesting because I would hope, I don’t know, it just is a different, it’s it’s kind of hard for me because, you know, if my family was really suffering and I felt like the Lord was. Um, punishing us if that’s how I looked at it, or chastising us. I think that I would spend a lot of time in prayer saying, Lord, what do you need me to do differently? What do you need us to do differently? I certainly wouldn’t be like, children, you’re doing this and this and this and that’s why this is happening, right? It just is, it’s a really interesting um way to offload the responsibility that Feels concerning to me. And also, it’s really like one of the examples is the, when he’s talking about separating people out and making sure there’s nobody who’s not righteous enough among the people. I just can’t help but think of the wheat and the tears, right? Like in Matthew 13 and Doctrine and Covenants 101, verse 6 of 101 says, pluck not up the tears while the blade is yet tender, for verily your faith is weak, lest you destroy the wheat also. Therefore, let the wheat and the tears grow together until the harvest is fully ripe. Then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tears, so the tears are never kicked out, right? And, and this seems to hang on where people talk about, oh, separating the wheat from the tears, we still want to kick the tears out. We still seem, you know, that still seems to come up sometimes. And, and it’s kind of like, are we not paying attention to what the scriptures actually say? Anyway, it’s really interesting. So, OK, so that was the October 55 conference. The next conference, March of ’56, so this is after that brutal winter when the livestock had all died, and my understanding, there were, it’s hard to get a complete picture cause there are contradictory reports, but it’s my understanding that there was massive flooding this year, which would make sense because of all of the fires and all of the dry ground. So with a really cold winter and it like, so flooding started happening that was not good, like just it was just bad, bad, bad and kept going bad. So. This was the following spring spring after an entire brutal winter of hunger, and they were increasingly in dire strains. So these already hungry people had just come through this brutal winter where their livestock died. They had no food and no prospects of food because also if when your oxen die, how do you plant your fields,
[00:27:56] right? Like when you’re, I mean they just were in really, really bad shape and um according to their leaders, it’s their fault. So this is March. 2, 1856. I’ll also read this talk from Brigham Young to set it off. I’m reading long excerpts because it’s hard to cut it down. He, he repeats himself a lot, so it’s just to get the tone. Any anyone interested in reading it, I really recommend you do read through these conferences. So. Um, he says, I will tell you what these people need with regard to preaching. You need figuratively to have it rain pitchforks timed downward from this pulpit. Sunday after Sunday. I think I’m probably using a more gentle tone than he used based on the words, but, um, you know, it’s, it’s better to read it than to hear me say it. So in my, in my manner of speaking, instead of the smooth, beautiful, sweet, silk, um, still silk velvet. Lied preaching, you should have sermons like peals of thunder, and perhaps we can, we then can get the scales from from our eyes. This style is necessary in order to save many of this people. Give them smooth preaching and let it glide along in their own, and let them glide along in their own desires and wishes, and they will follow after the traditions of their forefathers and the inclinations of their own wicked hearts and give way to temptation little by little until by and by they are ripe for destruction. Some may say Brother Brigham always chastises us, but what do I tell you? Skiing forward. The people should be preached to, but they need something besides smooth teaching. Comparatively speaking, they should have their ears cuffed and be roughly handled, be kicked outdoors, and then kicked in again. Most of the elders who preach in the stand ought to be kicked out of it and then kicked into it again, and they over until they overhaul themselves and find out what is the matter with them. It’s really interesting as far as I have seen, it seems like. The only leadership that was sort of exempt was the was the top 15, the quorum of the 12 and the first presidency. I didn’t see any loud threatening condemnations of them, but pretty much everybody else, even the presidents of the 70s, as we’ll get into a little bit later, were Were treated this way, preached to this way, he goes on, I feel like taking in men and women by the hair of their heads, figuratively speaking, and slinging them miles and miles and like crying, Stop before you ruin yourselves, but I have not the power to do this. There are many here by this score who do not know their right hands from their left, so far as the principle of justice is concerned. Does our high counsel? No. So here he goes after the high council. No, for they will throw dust in their eyes until you cannot find the 100 millionth part of an ounce of common sense in them. You may go to the bishop’s courts, and what are they? A set of old grannies. They cannot judge a case pending between two old women, to say nothing of a case between man and man. There’s a lot of that kind of rhetoric. We have already dropped many of them, and we are picking up young men. We will train them and tell them to serve God or apostatize. The time is coming when justice will be laid to the line and the righteousness to the plummet. We shall,
[00:30:55] when we shall take the old. Broad sword and ask, Are you for God? And if you are not hardly on the Lord’s side, you will be hewn down. I feel like reproving you like you are a wild ass that rears and almost breaks his neck before he will be tamed. It is so with this people. So he goes on, now, I want to acknowledge that in this rhetoric, it gets increasingly violent. Like here he’s talking about taking the broad sword and we will hew them down. You know, he’s not saying God will do it. He’s saying we will do it. And um, There’s the, the approach that the kind of apologetic approach to this is it was all figurative language. He was just saying this, but you do have to recognize he was the ultimate authority. He had absolute power in the early territory of Utah and um You know, it’s not clear how figurative he was being based on some of the things that happened that will go into a little bit. So I, I mean, I think that we look at it now and say, oh he was just being figurative, but if you were sitting in those benches, right, and having these things said to you that got More and more and more intense as the year went along. Um, I think that, you know, it might not feel that way. So he continues, if I have strength and continue to feel like it, I will come here to train you every Sabbath, and I wish my sermons to be like the reigning of pitchforks, points foremost, until you are awake out of your sleep and find out whether you are safe. are not, we have a great many gars, shark sharks, sheep heads, lamper eels, and every other kind of fish that is to be found in the pond. The gospel net has gathered them up, and what may you expect from such a mess? You may expect the best and worst of all of God’s creation mingled here together. The foolish will turn from correct principles, go over to the wicked, and Cease to be righteous so they so that they can go to hell with the fools. I wish to have every man who rises to speak from the stand lay aside the smooth tongue and velvet lips and let his words be like melted lead that they may sink into the hearts of the people. So he’s saying not only am I going to preach this way, I expect everyone to preach this way, right? So he’s really setting up this tone. And again, perhaps sensing his projection, he goes on to say. If you turn around and say Brother Brigham ought to brother Brigham ought to live according to his preaching, so he’s like, oh, some of them may. He said, he says, I answer, I live so now that you cannot, that you cannot keep up with me. Do not fret yourselves. I am ready to be waving the balance in all my ways with any of you. So he’s calling them to this harsh repentance, but they don’t need to call him to repentance, right? He, he, he doesn’t, it doesn’t apply to him. So, um, the church, so that’s the end of that talk that, I mean, that I’ll cover.
[00:33:35] The church website describes the following spring, he called for. Sermons to blast peals of thunder and motivate mass repentance. That’s what I just read. In September 1856, Brigham informed several apostles of plans to make a great wake throughout the territory. This is still quoting the um church website. The entire first presidency and, oh no, this is me, sorry. I didn’t take the quote off. So this is what, what, um, I will tell you that so the entire first presidency and many of the apostles. joined in, but Jedediah M. Grant, Brigham’s first counselor, took the lead, traveling from settlement to settlement, preaching with what the church website calls urgent rhetoric and religious zeal, religious zeal. So that is a euphemism. It was intense. This period produced the most threatening and even violent rhetoric the church has ever experienced. And um I will say though that Jedediah Grant, like, to his credit, because he He can be hard to take, right? Um, he actually gave his life for this movement. One of the big things that they were calling for was rebaptism. So they, that was, there were different ways that the saints could show their devotion and one of them was to be rebaptized. And so he baptized like hundreds of people in each congregation and so literally thousands of people and he was out baptizing in the Rivers and um in in November and December, and he ended up dying of pneumonia that year. So, so he really, you know, put his money where his mouth was. It was intense. So he, um, that it was, it was a it was a low blow that the first the first counselor of the first presidency died in this period. That was another thing that happened. So, um. But before that happened, the Reformation was in full swing. Um, Jeddia Grant, he did, he went to just every settlement and just. Wow, reading his sermons, wow, is all I can say. So people were answering the call to be rebaptized by hundreds of thousands, and one element that was put into place in the Reformation were the home missionaries. They were called the home missionaries. And it’s, it’s interesting cause it feels to me like this is like the the precursor to home teachers, right? I, I can’t help but assume that it grew into the um home teaching principle we have, but These home missionaries were different, um, with the intense rhetoric and the threats and the um the threats of cutting people off and shedding the blood of sinners, having elders sent to your home, I, I think likely felt more like a threat than an offer of help, at least that’s the impression I get in other places as well where Um, Brigham Young says, I’ll, I’ll, that he’ll send elders.
[00:36:25] It doesn’t feel like, oh, do you need me to send the elders? It feels more like I’m gonna send the elders, like a, like a warning, right? So I don’t know, and it doesn’t sound to me at all like opting out was an option because there were lines drawn, like those who do not step up, you know, like draw a line in the sand, and those who do not step up are going to be rooted out and kicked out of our settlements or killed. It was, was basically the rhetoric as I understand it. And so So the home missionaries went into every home with these questions. Um, so I’m gonna read the list of questions just because I think it’s interesting, it’s quite long, so bear with me, but imagine having like representatives of Brigham Young come to your house and ask you all of these questions. Have you committed murder by shedding innocent blood or consenting thereto? Number 2, have you betrayed your brethren or sisters in anything? 3, have you committed adultery by having any connection to a woman that was not your wife or a man that was not your husband? It says wife there, but you know it could have said not one of your many wives. So, um, 4, have you taken and made use of property not your own without the consent of the owner? 5, have you cut hay where you had no right to or turned your animals into another person’s grain or field without his knowledge or consent? These sound kind of, you know, amusing colloquial to us, but if you think about it, when they were starving and their animals were starving, these probably were really important. Like things to cover, so so I can see both like the good cause it did elevate the religiousness, the level of religious devotion of the people, but it also was like kind of scary, so um. Let’s see, where was where was I? 6, have you lied about or maliciously represented any person or thing? 7, have you borrowed anything that you have not returned or paid for? 8. Have you borne false witness against your neighbor? 9, have you taken the name of deity in vain? 10, have you coveted anything not your own? 11, have you been intoxicated with strong drink? 12, have you found lost property and not returned it to the owner? Or used all diligence to do so. And then um there was a series of like some sub questions in in that. Have you branded an animal that did not that you did not know to be your own? Have you taken another’s horse or mule from the range and rode it without the owner’s consent? Have you fulfilled your promise in paying your debts or run into debt without prospect of paying? Brigham also gave a lot of sermons on that that people wanted him to provide for them. On credit and and he was like not willing to do that cause because he said the people didn’t care about paying him back. So um it’s hard and and I I I I guess it’s hard because the people were starving, right? Um, have you taken water to irrigate with when it belonged to another person at the time you used it? Have you ever, and this was one that was added to one list. There were some, there’s some variety in them. This one was interesting. Have you ever taken any polls from the big field or fence or taken your brother’s hay? So,
[00:39:25] and then it goes on 13, do you pay your tithing promptly 14. Do you teach your family the gospel of salvation? 15. Do you speak against your brethren or against any principle taught us in the Bible, Book of Mormon, book book of doctrine and covenants, Revelations given through Joseph Smith, the prophet, and the presidency of the church is now organized. 16, Do you pray in your families night and morning and attend a secret prayer? 17, do you wash your body and have your family do so as often as help and cleanliness require and circumstances permit. Now this one made me laugh aloud because Brigham Young was um reading this question over the pulpit and um like telling the people the questions and he so the question was, do you wash your bodies once a week? Brother Brigham answered to this question himself and said he did not. He had tried it and was was well aware it was not for everybody. So, so, you know, so that like, like he was able to say that’s not for me, but you know, everyone had to and then Jedediah Grant got up right after and said, See, everyone needs to repent. So, so it was just interesting and um. Insight into like the hygiene of early Utah. These were rough times, right? So 18. Do you labor 6 days and rest or go to the house of worship on the 7th? 19. 0, that was 1818, sorry, I’m losing it. 19. Do you and your family attend ward meetings? 20. Do you preside over your family as a servant of God and is your family subject to you? So yes, I should have clarified. These were questions for the father of the home. 21, have you labored diligently and earned faithfully the wages paid to you by your employee employers? 22, do you oppress the hireling and his wages? 23, have you taken up and converted any stray animal to your own use or in any manner appropriated one to your benefit without accounting therefore to the proper authorities, so. There was the list of um questions that they were asked. Now this is also according to the church website. Home missionaries also urged men to marry additional wives to show greater commitment to the faith. So, again, they’re putting everything in the most euphemistic terms. Um, polygamy was one of the main themes of the Reformation. The, the way the people could show their true devotion was to find and take a plural wife. So, Just some of the statistics of this time and it’s hard. Um, during the Reformation, polygamy was practiced by more of the people than it was at any other time, according to research, in 1856, 1957, so that year of the Reformation, rates of plural marriage were 65% higher than in any other two-year period in Utah. Tragically, this resulted in younger and younger girls being forced into marriage because they all had to take wives and there just weren’t that many women. So this is according to fair. During this time, the average age of brides, either monogamous or polygamist, was 16 to 17. That was the average. That means for any 20 year old getting married. There had to be a corresponding 13 year old, so I don’t know. You know, I don’t have all of the historical records and the details. I,
[00:42:44] um, I do think it would be interesting. I got, as I was preparing for this, I did find some 13 year old brides and um. You know, so it’s, it’s tricky and it’s troubling, but um that was part of what happened during this time. And interestingly, from what I’m reading, starting in 1858, so the year following this, um, after these rushed plural marriages, divorces were at an all-time high in um in the Utah area, and it’s, it’s tricky because they weren’t actual divorces because they weren’t actually married but divorces in in Utah’s government, the way that they did them, right? So, That was, um, that was how polygamy was involved in this, and we’ll read a little bit more about it, but um it’s hard, right? That’s hard to go, wow, so these people were starving and being preached out like this and, and it’s not like today where you could get different ideas and different voices, right? You have to have pretty strong internal stuff to not believe what you were being told because it was the only voice speaking, right? And so you’re being told, like pressured in these ways, and so I’m, I, I imagine I have no evidence for this. This is, you know, but I imagine there would be a lot of pressure to both give daughters a way to be married, as well as marry girls that you may be felt very uncomfortable marrying is just tough, just tough too. To understand what the situation was. So, um, OK, again, the best way to paint the pictures to just read the sermons, and it was impossible to know which ones to choose. So I just like grabbed a couple that I read. I didn’t by any means go through and select cause it’s just too much to read. But um here are just a few of the, I just chose some one from Brigham Young, one from Jenaiah Grant, a little um clip from Hebrew C. Kimball, and You can just read to your heart’s content. And to me, from what I have read, it seems to me that there was a heavy focus on both blood atonement and polygamy. Those seem to me to be sort of the central themes, and I guess that’s why I’m, I find it interesting because I, I don’t know. I, I don’t know. I mean, it just seems like if there are things to repent of, maybe it’s the false doctrines, right, rather than like, you’re not faithful enough as you’re starving to death. I, I, I, I don’t know, it’s really interesting, so. This is the September 21st, 1856 conference. This is Brigham Young and forgive me for reading quite a bit of it, but
[00:45:12] that’s what we’re gonna do today. Will you, will you spend your lives to obtain a seat in the kingdom of God, or will you lie down and sleep and go to go down to hell? I want all the people to say what they will do, and I know that God wishes all his servants, his faithful sons and daughters, the men and women that inhabit this city to repent of their wickedness, or we will cut them off. That’s why I’m including some of these clips just to show you the rhetoric of, like, like you have to think what it meant to be cut off in Utah, right? How many, I mean, you were 1000 miles from even the far west. Settlements, you know, like there wasn’t a lot of, there weren’t a lot of options if you were cut off from the only community there was, the only way to survive, right? There are sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world or in that which is to come. And if they had their eyes open to see their true condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilled upon the ground that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sin. And the smoking incense would atone for their sins, whereas if such is not the case, they will stick to them and remain upon them in the spirit world. So this goes on and on in this speech and in so many others, it’s just repeated. Um, I know where you hear my brethren um telling about cutting people off from the earth that you consider, oh, I know when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth that you consider it a strong doctrine, but it is to save them, not to destroy them. So not only was Brigham teaching, preaching it, but it was what the others were sent to preach as well. Um, I know that there are sins committed of such a nature that if the people did understand the doctrine of salvation, they would tremble because of their situation. And furthermore, I know that there are transgressors who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness would beg of their brethren to shed their blood that the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the wrath that is kindled against them. And that the law might have its course. I will say further, I have had men come to me and offer their lives to atone for their sins. It is true that the blood of the Son of God was shed for sins through the fall, and those committed by men. Yet men can commit sins which it can never remit. So this is so contrary to what is taught throughout the scriptures, because he’s not talking about the unpardonable sin, denying the Holy Spirit, right? Is that, am I? He’s saying it right? Like, and he’s not even talking about murder. He’s, he’s telling the people that they’re, they’re amongst them, like sitting in there in the congregation are many of these people, right, who qualify for this. There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon the altar as an ancient days, and there are sins that the blood of the lamb or a calf or a turtle dove cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of the man. Um, now he goes on and um this is, this is in a different part of his sermon. These, these conferences lasted hours and hours and hours, so they sat and there’s a lot of repetition and resting things, so. Here’s what he says a little later on. Now for my proposition, it is more particularly for my sisters, as it as it frequently as it is frequently happening that women say they are unhappy. Men will say, my wife,
[00:48:24] though a most excellent woman, has not seen a happy day since I took a second wife. No, not a happy day for a year, says one, and another has not seen. Happy day for 5 years. It is said that women are tied down and abused, that they are misused and have not the liberty they ought to have, and many of them are wading through a perfect flood of tears because of the conduct of some men together with their own folly. I wish my own women to understand that what I am going to say is for them as well as others, so he’s saying I’m talking to my wives too. And I want those who are here to tell their sisters, yes, all the women of their community of this community, he says, and spread it to the Gentiles. I am going to give you from this time to the 6th day of October next for reflection. That you may determine whether you wish to stay with your husbands or not, and then I am going to set every woman at liberty and say to them, Now go your way, my women, with the rest, go your way, and my wives have got to do one of two things either round up their shoulders to endure the afflictions of this world and live their religion, or they may leave, for I will not have them about me. I will go into heaven alone rather than have scratching and. Fighting around me, I will set them all at liberty. Well, first wife too? Yes, I will liberate you all. I want to go somewhere and do something to get rid of the whiners. Um, he continues, I wish my women and brother Kimbles and brother Grants to leave and every woman in this territory, or else say in their hearts that they will embrace the gospel, the whole of it. Tell the Gentiles that they will free every woman in this territory. At our next conference, what the first wife too? Yes, there shall not be 11 held in bondage. All shall be set free. And then let the father be at the head of the family, the master of his own household, and let him treat them as an angel would treat them and let the wives and the children say amen to what he says and be subject to his dictates instead of their dictating the man, instead of their trying to govern him. Um, no doubt some are thinking, I wish Brother Brigham would say what would become of the children. I will tell you what my feelings are. I will let my wives take the children and have property, property enough to support them and can educate them and can give them a good fortune and can take a fresh start. I do not desire to keep a particle of my property except enough to protect me from a state of nudity. And I would say, wives, you are welcome to the children, only do not teach them iniquity, for if you do, I will send an elder or come myself to teach them the gospel. You teach them life and salvation, or I will send elders to instruct them. So now a lot of people use this to say, see, Brigham was very generous and he and the women were, didn’t have to stay at all, but I think. Well, you can look at what happened to actual women who were divorced at this time, including Brigham Young’s own wives. They were certainly not provided for, most often not allowed to take the children. It’s kind of, it’s sort of like that previous sermon where he’s like, I don’t care at all about money when he has tons of money. It’s very easy to say. I’ll give them everything they need to provide for their children when nothing is being required of you and there’s nobody to enforce that, right? Cause it, it, I think that um I, I think that the women there knew what this really was, you know,
[00:51:38] I don’t think that they took it as a genuine offer. Of course, that is my speculation. I’m sure there are people who will push back on that and disagree, and that’s fine, but show me. The evidence of the women that left, the women, we know that they were miserable. It goes on in in so many talks. It talks about the suffering of the women, but it talks about it in the demeaning terms of roll up your shoulders, deal with it, right? Um, it, you know, they’re not allowed to cry anymore if they’re going to stay and um and so we know they were unhappy, but I can’t find. I can’t find any records of women who left because of this invitation, this offer. Like, if they were unhappy and it was an offer, like, look, you can have your own house, you can have your own money, your children will be provided for you. You don’t have to stay in this situation. If that were a genuine offer. Women would have taken, taken them up on it. And so, um, so I would like to be shown any evidence of women that did. Accept this offer and that were provided for because I can’t find anything at all. So, um, he goes on to say, um, and also you can hear the, the offer of sending elders to instruct them if if they’re not taught as um he wants them taught, you know. Let every man treat his wives. Keep thus treat his wives, keeping Raymond enough to clothe his body, and say to your wives, Take all that I have and be set at liberty. But if you stay with me, you shall comply with the law of God, and that too without any murmuring and whining, you must fulfill the law of God in every respect and round up your shoulders to walk up to the mark without any grunting. So this really was not an offer to take care of the women. This was a threat to the women that they had to shut their feelings down more, that they weren’t that, you know, they weren’t yet trained in keeping sweet as um because this was for many of them the first generation, right? Like most these first wives that he’s talking about had not gotten married with the expectation of polygamy and um. So, so it’s pretty tough and just as one example, there are so many, but just as one is my own great great grandmother who. She was divorced and was kicked out penniless, sent away without her children. So, um, so it just doesn’t ring true. So it’s, it’s, it’s more a way to tell the women you have to stop having feelings or showing your feelings, expressing your feelings. You have to stop with any of that. Um, not, you are free. You have your freedom. So then he continues, now recollect that 2, now recollect that 2 weeks from tomorrow I am going to, that’s the date, he said. I am going to set you at liberty. But the first wife will say it is hard, for I have lived with my husband 20 years or 30, and I have raised a family of children for him, and it is a great trial for me to for him to have more women. Then I say it is time that you gave him up to other women who will bear children.
[00:54:33] If my wife had borne me all the children that she ever would bear, the celestial law would teach me to take young women that would have children. Do you, um, and so you have to imagine these women were sitting starving, sitting listening to this, being preached at them like. You know, pitchforks times down, piercing their hearts as the um as the book of Jacob says, right? Oh, do you understand this? I have told you many times that there are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles. Now, what is our duty to prepare tabernacles for them, to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery and every species of crime. Um, it is a duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can. Hence, if my, if my women leave, I will go in search of others who will abide the celestial law and let all I now have go where they please, though I will send the gospel to them. So, um, it’s so interesting because as I was reading this again and the justification for polygamy, we need more bodies like. Um, After a man and woman married in monogamy have had all of their children they are going to have for 20 or 30 years, you know, once that has been accomplished, they then can go on and become grandparents and be involved in the training up of the next generation. It is not incumbent upon certain men to marry. 1617, 1514, 13 year olds to create more bodies like more children are not born in that method. It’s, it’s so strange and blind and um you know, and these, it’s just, it’s just really an interesting thing if we really think about what what this teaching was. It’s just Not true, not of God. I know I’m speaking plainly here, but, but I am, I am speaking plainly. That’s how I feel about it. This, this teaching was not true and was not of God. And so, um, do I think, oh, and then he goes on later, he says, do I think that my children will be damned? No, I do not, for I am going to fight the devil until I save them all. I have got my sword ready and it is a. Two edged one, so I don’t know what his children thought that meant, but I have not a fear about that, for I would almost be ashamed of my body if it would beget a child that would not obey, abide the law of God, though I may have some unruly children. So again, that’s just such an interesting, I would be ashamed if my body could produce a disobedient child and yet. It was his own doctrine that Adam was God the Father. Like, in any case, Adam got Cain, right? Like it’s just really interesting how he just kind of goes off and you know, just keeps saying things that I don’t know how well thought out they are um. He continues,
[00:57:27] Sisters, I am not joking. I do not throw out my proposition to banter your feelings, to say, see whether you will leave your husbands, all or any of you, but I do know that if that there is no cessation to the everlasting whining of many of the women in this territory. I am satisfied this is the case, and if the women will turn from the commandments of God and continue to despise the order of heaven, polygamy. I will pray that the curse of the Almighty may be close to their heels and that it may be following them all the day long and that and those that enter into it and are faithful, I will promise them that they shall be queens in heaven and rulers to all eternity. So we’re going to do a future episode on um the testimonies of women because that’s one of the main things that people who continue to believe in polygamy use to. Um, you know, to continue to say no, polygamy is true and you just have to, there we’ll get into it a lot more, but look at what they were being subjected to, right? Look at what the context was of their testimonies of polygamy. And so, um, anyway, there’s a, there’s a lot to say on that. We’ll get there. So, um, not in this episode, we’ll get there in a future episode. So, so he continues, but says one, I want to have my paradise now and says another, I did think I should be in paradise if I was sealed to Brother Brigham, and I thought I should be happy when I became his wife or brother Here’s. I loved you so much that I thought I was going to that I thought I was going to have a heaven right off, right here on the spot. What they’re really saying is. I didn’t expect that my life would be this kind of misery, right? That’s what they’re really saying and um. Oh, he goes on, what a curious doctrine it is that we are preparing that we are preparing to enjoy. The only heaven for you is that which you make for yourselves. My heaven is here, laying his hand on his heart. I carry it with me. When do I expect it in its perfection? When I come up in the first res when I come up in the resurrection, then I shall have it, and not till then. But now we have got to fight the good fight of faith sword in hand as much so as much so as men have when they go to battle, and as it is one continual warfare from morning to evening evening with sword in hand. That is my duty and that is my life. But the women come and say, Really, brother John and brother William, I thought you were. Going to make a heaven for me, and they get into trouble because a heaven is not made for them by the men, even though agency is upon women as as well as upon men. True, there is a curse upon the woman that is not upon upon the man, namely that her whole affect affections shall be toward her husband, so that she will only have one or all of her affection is just to one man. And what is the next? He shall rule over you. But how is it now you desire to rule your over your husband? But you, um, your desire is to your husband, but you strive to rule over him, whereas the man should rule over you, and he just goes on and on and on and on repeating this. Um, he again repeats his proposition, Prepare yourselves for 2 weeks from tomorrow, and I will tell you now that if you tarry with your husband. After I have set you free, you must bow down to it and submit yourselves to the celestial law. You may go where you please after two weeks from tomorrow, but remember
[01:00:42] that I will not hear any more of this whiny. And then right after that, he finishes by saying, in the midst of all my harsh sayings, shall I say chastisements, I am disposed in my heart to bless this people, and I do bless you in the name of Jesus. Amen. So that was that talk and then, um, you know, and I mean I just took parts of it. It went on and on and on, but here’s an example. This was a couple months later, November 9th, 1856, this is Hebrewy. Kimball. He didn’t have, um, I mean, he, he has plenty, but it’s not as much as Jetta diagram, so I just will. this snippet, do you think a wife is contending against her husband with a good spirit when she is commanded to be subject to her husband, even as we are to Christ? Um, is it not just as necessary that women should be governed as that men should be? Is it not just as reasonable that a wife should be governed as that her husband should be? I, I feel bad, but I feel like I have to clarify something here for those who want to just say, yes, that makes perfect sense. Women are every bit as capable as being led by the Spirit, by the savior, as men are, right? This is saying men should be led by Christ and women should be completely obedient to their husband. That is not the same thing. You can’t say what men have to follow Christ, so why shouldn’t women have to obey their hus her husband. It’s women also should obey the Lord, just as men should obey the Lord directly, right? So I just had to clarify that because there are people who for them this makes perfect sense. Someone who’s been pushing back on me just A little while ago sent me a message saying, what is it, discrimination that a car has 1 steering wheel and 4 tires. I, I mean, people really think that these analogies are helpful to their arguments. So anyway, I’m just clarifying that. um OK, so He goes on, I want to know what a good wife. I want to know what a good, what good a wife is to me, what good a wife is to me unless she will let me lead and guide and let me govern her by the word of God. When a wife is obedient to her husband, there is union. There is heaven. He goes forward. I have no wife nor child that has any right to rebel against me. If they violate my laws and rebel against me, they will get into trouble just as quickly as though they transgress the counsels and teachings of Brother Brigham. Does it give a woman a right to, um, to sin against me because she is my wife? No, but it is her duty to do my will as I do the will of the of my father and my God. It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and unless she is, I would not give a damn for all her queenly right and authority, nor for her either if she will quarrel and if she will quarrel and lie about the work of God and the principle of plurality. I tell you.
[01:03:26] As the Lord God Almighty lives, my sword is unsheathed, and I shall never sheath it until those of you who have done wrong repent of your evil deeds. So this comes. I, I didn’t cut anything out here. He goes immediately from talking about the women complaining to talking about keeping his sword unsheathed. Some of you have found fault because I am so plain and severe. No man can rise up here with his sophistry and silver lips and have the Holy Spirit for a moment. Uh, um, a disregard of plain and correct teachings is the reason why so many are dead and damned and twice plucked up by the roots, and I was as soon baptized the devil as some of you. So now this was November 1856, so the end of that second awful. well, not the end of it, but like, so people were literally dying. Many were dying. So I don’t know what he meant when he said, this is the reason that so many are dead and damned is because they’re not listening to my teachings, but there literally were people who were dead, and it sounds to me like he’s saying not only are they dead, but they’re also damned. Um. Because they died of starvation, you know, and, and that’s evidence, I guess that they weren’t listening. I don’t know, you guys can all decide how to take that. I’m trying to make sense of what they were actually trying to say. So here’s one from Jedediah Grant, and there are so many. I just chose this one because it’s short and I can read most of it. I know I’ve been reading a lot, but I, you know, I wanted to share what this time period was, um, and so this is September 21st, 1856. It is definitely not. Uh, remarkable among his sermons. It’s just, you know, the one I happened to grab. So, um, here’s what he says. This is his wrapping up speech of this conference. I feel that the remarks which have, which we have heard this morning are true, and they apply directly to you who are now present and To the inhabitants of this city and the territory generally, and we do not excuse any of you. So remember Brigham Young had been talking about the wicked people that were sitting among you. He’s, he’s following this up. This is after Brigham Young was part of what spoke that morning. So yes, this is you, and, and you know, the distrust and the that’s being sown in the community. Um, if the arrows of the Almighty ought to be thrown at you, we want to do it and make you feel and realize what we that we mean you. So, um, again, saying there are people and talking about people in the congregation. He’s, I’m, I’m cutting down to this part. They are the old hardened sinners and are almost, if not altogether past improvement and are full of hell, and my prayer is that God’s indignation may rest upon them. And that he will curse them from the crown of their heads to the soles of their feet. I say that there are men and women that I would advise to go to the president immediately and ask him to appoint a committee to attend to their case, and then let a place be selected and let that committee shed their blood. We have those amongst us that are full of all manner of abominations, those who need to have their bloodshed,
[01:06:18] for water will not do. Their sins are of too deep a die. I would ask how many covenant breakers there are in this city and this kingdom. I believe that there are a great many, and if they are covenant breakers, we need a place designated where we can shed their blood. He goes on, they, they are a perfect nuisance, and I want them cut off, and the sooner it is done, the better. We have no, we have men who. are incessantly finding fault. Now again, the projection, just consider this, right? Consider what he’s saying to them with what he’s currently actually doing. We have men who are incessantly finding fault, who get up a little party spirit and criticize the conduct of men of God. They will find fault with this, that, and the other, and nothing is right for them because they are full of all kinds of filth and wickedness, and we have women who here who are anything but the but the celestial law of God who like anything but the celestial law of God again, polygamy. And if they could break asunder the cable of the Church of Christ, there is scarcely a mother in Israel, but would do it this day. So here, so for all of the people, I’m, I guess I’m setting the precursors for that for the episode we’ll do soon on the testimonies of the women. But here is Jedediam Grant, the first counselor in the first presidency himself saying there is scarcely a mother in Israel but would do that, but would do it this day, would break the celestial law. He is saying. That polygamy is universally despised and hated by the women who were wading through a constant sorrow of tears, right? Like, what more do we need to be given to understand what this did to the women, which is exactly what Jacob too said it would do to the women, right? And they, um, and they talk it to their husbands, to their daughters, to their neighbors, and say they have not seen a week’s happiness since they became acquainted with the law or since their husbands took a second wife. They want to break up the Church of God and break it from their husbands and from their family connections, and he goes on and on with that. If I hurt your feelings, let them be hurt, and if any of you ask, do I mean you, I answer yes. If any woman asks, do I mean her? I answer yes, and I want you to understand that I am throwing the arrows of God Almighty among Israel. I do not excuse any. I am speaking to you in the name of Israel’s God, and you need to be baptized and washed clean from your sins, from your backslidings, from your apostases, from your filthiness, from your lying, from your swearing, from your lust, and from everything that is. Before the God of Israel, we have been trying long enough with this people, and I go in for letting the sword of the Almighty be unsheathed not only in word but in deed. I go in for letting the wrath of God, the wrath of the Almighty, burn up the dross and the filth. And if the people will not glorify the Lord by sanctifying themselves, then the wrath of the Almighty God burn against them and the wrath of Joseph, Joseph and of Brigham and of Hebrew and of high heaven. Um, here’s the end, brethren and sisters, we want you to repent and forsake your sins,
[01:09:12] and you have, who have committed sins that cannot be forgiven through baptism, let your blood be shed and let the smoke ascend that the incense thereof may come up before God as an atonement for your sins, and that the sinners in Zion may be afraid. We again don’t have a record of who may have submitted themselves to be blood atoned. I, I mean, it, it’s, it sounds as sincere as that first thing. We want you to repent and forsake your sins, and we want you to present yourself to be blood atoned, you know. Um, these are my feelings and may God fulfill them. And my wishes are that he will grant the desire. Of my brethren that Zion may be purified, that the wicked and the wicked purged out of her until God shall say I will bless the rest until he shall say I will bless your flocks, your herds, your little ones, your houses, your lands, and all that you possess, and you shall be my people, and I will come and take up my abode with you, and I will bless those that do right which he may grant in the name of Jesus. Amen. So, um, OK, so that’s that’s kind of what was happening, right? Now, oh shoot, there was something I was going to read and I skipped over it. So I’m going to read this hymn that I found. I should have read it before cause it was given much earlier in the Reformation, but this is a hymn that was printed in the Deseret News so that everyone could have, could add it to their, you know, to their collection of hymns to be sung. It’s a hymn called the Reformation. It, um, it was it was in the Deseret News October 15, 1856. It had already been um sung at conferences, and it’s called the Reformation. I’m going to read the entire thing. It’s I may be the fifth verse that is really the one, but I just think it’s important to set the tone of what the time, so you would hear these sermons and then you would sing this hymn. The reformation has commenced. I’ll hail the glorious day. May God His Holy Spirit send to guide us in His way. Now, brethren, the time has come for wickedness to cease, so live like honest saints of God and righteousness increase. The chorus. Then, O brethren, come and let us all agree and strive to gain the blessings in store for you and me. To gain these blessings, we must try and do what we are told. I’ll tell you what we ought to do if you won’t think me bold. We ought to put down wickedness. We ought to watch and pray. We ought to build the kingdom up, not loaf our time away. It’s also just kind of fun to, you know, it’s like, it’s fun to get into this, um, this society and culture. Then, oh brethren, come and let us all agree and strive to gain the blessings in store for you and me. We ought to have our houses meet with our teachers to obey. We ought to keep our bodies clean. Our tithing always pay. We ought our brother’s character, keep sacred as our own. Attend our attend to business as we can. Let other folks alone. Then, O brethren, come and let us all agree and strive to gain the blessings in store for you and me. We ought our bishops to sustain their counsels to abide
[01:12:10] and knock down every dwelling where wicked folks reside. So in a hymn they’re actually talking about destroying the homes of the wicked. We ought our teach and and remember the, I guess it’s just interesting cause who were the wicked? He was saying I’m speaking to every one of you, right? Um, we ought our teachers to respect, not give them looks nor snubs, and keep our ditches free from pots likewise from stinking tubs. Then, oh brethren, come and let us all agree and strive to gain the blessings in store for you and me. Now is the women’s verse. Now, sisters, now please pay attention to this because people who we make claims about polygamy without actually understanding the truth of it. Now sisters listen to what I say with trials this world is strife. You can’t expect to miss them all. Help husband get a wife. Now this advice I freely give, if exalted you would be, remember that your husband must be blessed with more than thee. Then, oh, let us say, God bless the wife that strives and aids her husband all she can to obtain a dozen wives. Now the final verse. Now brethren, let us study to do the will of God. If it’s sowing, reaping, preaching, we’ll we’ll get a just reward. Keeping sacred all our all your covenants and do the best you can. I pray that God will bless you all. With worlds without end, amen. Then our brethren, come and let us all agree and strive to gain the blessings in store for you and me. We might come back and read that sister’s verse one more time. So anyway, that was, that was the hymn of the Reformation that was Sent throughout all of the congregations and um just as I said before that, not even the upper leaders were safe. This was um from a conference in, oh dear, oh, this is October 7th, so in October 7th conference of 1856, um, it said the conference continued for several days and calls for reformation became increasingly intense and personal. In a severe and pointed attack on October 7th, Grant Woodruff, and a number of the other authorities met met in the old Salt Lake Tabernacle with the seventies quorums. Joseph Young, senior president of the first council of the 70, who helped Grant inaugurate the Reformation in Davis County, conducted the meeting calling for contributions to sustain the missionary work, so These people were starving, right, and he was saying we need the missionary fund built up. Few offered to donate money. Grant then rose to speak and said he would not recommend that they call presidents of the 70s to preach, since he said, quote, they would preach the people to sleep and then to hell, calling several of the president. Including Henry. So these were the presidents of the 70s. He called many of them, including Henry Harriman, Albert P. Rockwood, Zera Posopher, Benjamin Clap, and Horace S. Eldridge. He called them by name. He accused them of committing adultery or some other serious sin of commission or omission. And he urged Young to cut them off and prune the trees around them. Several of the presidents spoke up to defend themselves and deny the charges. Woodruff then took Woodruff, Wilfred Woodruff then took to the pul pulpit to reinforce Grant’s accusations, announcing that he would like to hear, he would like to bear testimony. to what Grant had said.
[01:15:27] He then said to the people that I wished them not to trifle with the teachings of President Grant for what he said was true. W Woodruff urged them to repent and to get the spirit of God. It’s so interesting. It almost sounds like, I don’t know if you’ve studied, um, some of the different totalitarian societies. Like I know under, um, Stalin, that like they just start making these accusations against people, even at the high up leaders and The same things happened um under Warren Jeffs. He kicked out all of the upper leaders, right, to, um, it’s just, it’s really interesting. It’s so interesting, and this entire doctrine of blood atonement is so interesting because, I mean, throughout the scriptures we are taught of the power of the atonement and of how the blood of Christ washes away all sin, right? And my grace is sufficient for you and and so it’s just, it’s really interesting that even the top leaders weren’t safe. um it it was, so anyway. So the and I talked already about how it increased plural marriage and led to more and more teenagers being married. So I really think it was a like a low point in our history. It was a terrifying and quite awful time, I think. And it, so it did lead to an increase in religious devotion. But the problem is, in my perspective that the religious religious devotion is wonderful if it is based on sound principles, right? It’s not great when it’s mixed with falsehoods that oppose Christ’s teachings like blood atonement and polygamy, and so. Um, both, so while plural marriage was attended to more and taken more seriously, it seems that also like some of the things that happened during and during this time period, um, some of, we just know about a few things and it’s really quite awful. And so, um, just I, I am preparing for this learned about some things I hadn’t already known about because we don’t know how many. How often blood atonement may have happened that we don’t know. We, like I said, we don’t know. It may maybe it was mostly a rhetorical advice device, you know, I mean, I don’t, I don’t think that everyone was out killing people, I hope, you know, or I mean I just don’t even know cause I can’t find any records. I can’t find any information. The information was intentionally covered up, but A couple that we do know about are, you can look up and do more research on these if you’re interested. The Santa Clara ambush that happened February 17, 1857. So there were two kind of Ruffians, hooligans, I don’t know, crooks that had come into the area and they were trying to leave. They, they had been arrested and served their time and they were trying to leave along with a man who was apostatizing from the church who was leaving the church, and there was one other man, I can’t remember the details, but um they were trying to leave and they were sleeping
[01:18:19] in their tents and they were ambushed and shot, um. I don’t know that any of them died, but, but the one who was the um apostate, he was shot in the face and um some other things happened anyway. That was a pretty intense thing that happened and Um, and all of these like nobody was ever there wasn’t really any, um. I guess it wasn’t seen as a problem. Can we say that, right? Like it was just there there wasn’t punishment. There weren’t consequences that I was able to find and things were covered up if they were looked into. And then there were the Parish Potter murders. These are pretty sad. So William Parish, this is from um Wilfred Woodruff in the Mormon Reformation, um, oh, this is quoted in fair and I can I’ll put, of course, all of the links below, but. William Parrish and several of his family and friends decided to leave the church and the community at Springville. They were murdered under suspicious circumstances, and although the perpetrators were never found, a number of commentators associated the deeds with the doctrine of lead atonement, so. You know, this, this blood atoning thing that showed back up with like the, the barons or the Lafferty’s, you know, it like it was there before and then um and then of course, the main horror that we know of was in September 1857, also in this time period, the Mountain Meadows massacre. And so with all of this language being spoken, and I can’t remember if it was 127 or 147. That were killed, um, men, women, and children, and it’s, it’s a really, really dark time. And, um, you know, and, and we do know that there were letters sent, um, from specifically Brigham Young about the Santa Clara ambush that seems to have been under his direction, at least. You know, that he sent some pretty strongly language, um, strongly worded instructions, and, um, you know, and we don’t know anything about the mountain massacre, and you know, everyone has their viewpoint of it, but what we do know is that it was covered up, definitely, um, up to the highest office of the church, there was. Efforts to hide and cover up what really happened, and we do know that Lee, John Lee was um the scapegoat, right? He was the one that could cut loose and blame it on. That’s that’s very well understood and very well documented and um not that I want to say poor John D. Lee. I, I just think it’s awful these men. To be brought to a point because there were many, many men involved in the Mountain Meadows massacre in the in in the um killing part, right? There are many Mormon men involved in it, and my understanding is that many of them. In the subsequent years killed themselves,
[01:21:00] like couldn’t live with what they had done, and so the rhetoric that was required to bring them to a place to do something so awful is really hard to recognize. So um this is, this is January of 1857, so before these murders had happened, this is a quote from Brigham Young. The reformation still continues. Meetings are frequent and well attended. You may believe that it makes the sinners in Zion afraid and fearfulness seizes the hypocrite. And we trust it will be too warm for such characters to remain in our midst. So there was just threatening language and a threatening atmosphere, right? So on the one hand, the home missionaries were going to come to your house and ask you these questions, but if you didn’t want them to come or if you didn’t answer well enough, what would happen if you decided, OK, I’ve had enough of this and you wanted to leave, what would happen? That’s what the parish has decided, right? And so, Ah, tricky, tough times in our history that I think it’s best for us to acknowledge and understand and learn from. Rather than get mad when someone talks about it. So I hope no one’s getting mad that we’re talking about it because I think that we should know, right? And so um the rumors stuck around. This is a first presidency statement from 1889, so over 30 years later, it says, notwithstanding all the stories about the killing of apostates, no case of this kind has ever occurred and, and of course has never been established against the church we represent. We denounce as entirely untrue the allegation that has been made, that our church favors or believes in the killing of persons who leave the church or apostatize from its doctrines, and I think that that’s very true. I do not think that is what our church teaches, but during this time period, I think things were quite different. And so, um, I my the impression I get is that the Like things got so out of control, particularly with the Mountain Meadows massacre and brought so much heat, that that really started to tone down the rhetoric. And then I think that, you know, a better crop crops improving the next year, like it just kind of seemed to die down and um go away a little bit, but it was, it was truly one of the darkest periods in Utah history and in church history and It doesn’t take much to see how contrary the ideas that were preached here, how contrary they are to the teachings of Christ throughout scriptures, to what I understand is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I think it’s really interesting. And um, and I, I think the reason I wanted to talk about it was to show what increased polygamy, what led to it, what the spirit behind it tended to be, right? So it’s an important part for us to understand. How the women were treated in polygamy, how they suffered under polygamy, and what caused it to increase and to become more firmly entrenched, right? And it’s interesting to me because the um the impression I get is that the church really has stepped away from blood atonement. I think that they have Actually disavowed it as doctrine, not, I don’t think blood atonement is held as like, well, we don’t practice that now
[01:24:07] because we can’t live the fullness of the gospel, but we know, you know, that’s not the impression I get from blood Atonement. So it’s interesting. That we keep polygamy in that situation. Like, I think we have completely renounced even the very idea of blood atonement. At least that’s the impression I get. If someone has different information, please share it with me. I searched, like you can’t even find the topic of Blood atonement on the church website. At least I didn’t. Maybe there’s a gospel topic essay on it, but I didn’t see it. So maybe someone can share it with me in the comments if I missed it. That would be embarrassing if I did, but But it was late at night when I, I, you know, I do these in the middle of the night off. So anyway, share it with me if you find it. I haven’t found anything. And so I guess the thing that I think is interesting is in the Reformation, blood atomma and polygamy really were tied together as sort of the center points of the gospel, at least how the gospel was viewed at the time of the Reformation, and just like we have not found it. It hasn’t destroyed the church to release blood atonement, right? We, I don’t think we’re keeping blood atonement on the shelf in the same way. Maybe in terms of how do I grapple with that, how do I make sense of that happening in our past, but I don’t think we keep it there to say, OK, God could reinstate this at some time and and likely will for Zion to be established, right? I hope that that’s not where members of the church are. So it is my suggestion that it would not hurt the church or not hurt our testimonies in the church. It would not hurt anything true to do the same with polygamy, to just let it go and see it as a challenging dark period in our history that we can learn from, but not something that we need to continue to hold on to and look forward to. So thank you again for sticking with me. I hope that you found this interesting. Again, I am Michelle Stone, and this was 132 Problems.
